Principal Investigator/Program Director (Last, First. Middle): Selkef, Harry P. DESCRIPTION: See instructions. State the application's broad, long-term objectives and specific aims, making reference to the health relatednessof the project (i.e., relevance to the mission of the agency). Describe concisely the research design and methods for achieving these goals. Describe the rationale and techniques you will use to pursue these goals. In addition, in two or three sentences, describe in plain, lay language the relevanceof this research to public health. If the application is funded, this description, as is, will become public information. Therefore, do not include proprietary/confidentialinformation. DO NOT EXCEED THESPACE PROVIDED. Leveraging Tufts University's excellent resources, traditions of multidisciplinary collaboration, generation of novel research methods, and academic innovation, including the first MS/PhD Clinical Research (CR) Program in a graduate school of biomedical sciences, we will establish the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). This will unite eight Tufts Schools (Arts & Sciences, Citizenship and Public Service, Dental Medicine, Engineering, Graduate Biomedical Sciences, Medicine, Nutrition, and Veterinary Medicine), eight affiliated hospitals, the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts, and the Tufts-New England Medical Center (Tufts-NEMC) Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies. This will: 1) Create a new home for clinical and translational clinical research (CTR), a cross-University, cross-affiliate Tufts CTSI, headed by an international leader in CTR who will report to the University Provost; 2) Create eight research resource Components suggested by the CTSA RFA, plus four based on special Tufts strengths; 3) Enhance and expand the "CR Portal" at Tufts- NEMC into a Tufts-wide "CTSI Portal" that provides coordinated and mentored University- and affiliate-wide access to CTSI Components and other resources; 4) Create activities, processes, and new information systems that will support and promote collaborative cross-disciplinary full-spectrum translational research; and 5) Enhance our MS/PhD CR Program by a) adding to the existing four Concentrations (Clinical Investigation, Epidemiology/Biostatistics, Health Services and Outcomes Research, and Medical Informatics), Concentrations in Bench-to-Bedside Translational Research and in Evidence-Based Medicine; b) developing distance learning to extend the Program to fellows, K12 scholars, and other faculty at Tufts affiliates across Massachusetts; c) creating the joint Pfizer Tufts Career Development Awards; d) preparing predoctoral tracks for Tufts MD, DMD, and DVM students to also get a CR MS or PhD; e) developing joint tracks for students to get an MS in Nutrition or in Biomedical Engineering with a PhD in CR; and f) developing a program to generate interest in CTR among students from underrepresented minority groups. In all aspects of training, research support, and organizational development, the Tufts CTSI will support and instill the culture of cooperative interdisciplinary research, a home without walls, for CTR Tufts-wide.